East Texas teen named best guitarist under 20

May 19, 2014 at 1:01 PM CDT - Updated July 10 at 10:36 AM

Johnson's Lost Crowes (Source: KTRE Staff)

Johnson's Lost Crowes (Source: KTRE Staff)

Johnson's Lost Crowes (Source: KTRE Staff)

CENTER, TX (KTRE) - A self-taught East Texas guitarist recently outplayed hundreds of other players at the Dallas International Guitar Festival. The 17-year-old from Center won the competition and became the best guitarist under 20 in Texas.

"Even though you're from a small town you can do big things," said Johnson's Lost Crowes, bass guitarist, Julian Johnson.

And that's exactly what Johnson's Lost Crowes is doing. The band's lead guitarist, Cade Foehner won the title of best guitarist under 20.

"All the top 10 performed for them and we played an original of ours called 'Walk For Daze'," said Foehner. "I've never had to like make it perfect but we did. Like I mean there was no mess ups. It was pretty flawless. The most flawless we've ever played."

"They picked me, which was really exciting," said Foehner.

Foehner's band mates agree with the win.

"To me it's a no brainer. To me he is the best guitarist in the world," said Johnson.

The boys never set out to start a band but with a shared love for classic southern rock it all seemed to fall into place.

"It's just weird because we started off just messing around," said Dillon Reynolds, who plays the drums in the band. "We were just all sitting around one day and I showed up one day and Cade was teaching Julian how to play the bass and then I played the drums a little bit."

"Wow it's actually a little more serious because we're actually good," said Foehner.

What's even more impressive is they all taught themselves how to play and like most musicians they're music has a message.

"We talk about a lot of deep stuff. If you listen to our lyrics you will understand completely. We love to jam. We have fun on stage," said Johnson. "It's an experience when you watch us play to get inspired to do music."

"Music has always been something that I don't know because I've never been good at sports you know and this is just something that I can kind of pour into and do it alone or do it with other people and it's just kind of another kind of way to express myself," said Foehner.

"Most of our stuff is kind of really toward American people and you know to not blindly follow something that you don't necessarily know about and that's what it's about," said Foehner.

Johnson's Lost Crowes has been rocking out for three years and say god has played a huge role in the opportunities they've been given.

"The big thing about it is God because that's what we base the whole band around because he's like the foundation," said Foehner.

Johnson's Lost Crowes is working on their second cd which they hope to release this summer.

RNN Staff

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